We all know what the traditional view of a vampire is, be our information gathered from the old and new Dracula movies or from watching sweet little Buffy grow up into the tortured, isolated soul that she was.
 
When the word “vampire” is uttered into the mind springs images of pale faces surrounded by dark fabric, dim alleyways with sulking creatures, and even dimmer victims who are foolish enough to wander into said alleys. There may even be talk of shape shifting into cats, bats, of even wolves, though vampires should never be confused with lycanthropes (also known as Werewolves).
 
Nowadays there is a different kind of vampire, or rather vampyre. It is often assumed that vampire and vampyre mean the same exact thing only with different spelling, and while that may have originally been the case the two words are used for completely different things.
 
Either way a vamp(i/y)re is a being that needs to “feed” off of another to survive. Only now the word vampire is used to describe one who drinks blood in order to sustain his or herself and vampyre is used to describe a “psychological” being who feeds off emotions and energies.
 
Even within the vampire community such individuals are quite often regarded as “posers” and fakes but still the numbers of “gatherings” for like people grows. Vampyres often seek out individuals like themselves to meet with in order to sustain themselves. A gathering may include as few as three and as many as thirty individuals, vampyre and human alike.
 
In addition to these two categories there are also a number of vamps who classify themselves as “hybrid.” These nightwalkers are part whichever form of creature of the night along with something else, be it lycan, faerie, witch, ect. How these creatures came to be is a million dollar question: one that I have sought the answer for.
 
Thanks to the world of technology meeting all sorts of people is not only a piece of cake, it’s the entire diabetes invoking hidden girl inside the bachelor sweets sized whammy. After a short period of exchanging IMs, emails, and forum posts I was invited to one of the gatherings I mentioned earlier.
 
Clad in black cotton and crowded into a dark studio apartment I and seven others (five vamps, two humans) spent a number of hours playing questions and answers. I found that very rarely was a human actually changed into a vampire (or vampyre) on purpose. Instead most of them were born into a family of already declared vamps or into families with vampiric lineage, no matter if that particular trait had skipped around for a number of generations.
 
While several of them admitted to not being able to stand sunlight they agreed that for the most part their kind had more of an aversion to it than an actual allergy. As all of the individuals I met with were vampyres their experience in blood was limited. They did say, however, that many of the vampires they knew had steady “cattle” that either live with them or provide for them on a regular basis willingly. No one was out in the night skulking around and waiting to tear at the throat of some poor unsuspecting innocent.
 
In addition none of them knew where the myth that they did not have reflections came from. We passed around a mirror and each of them laughed as the blinked back at their image. One of the older vamps worse a very pretty crucifix around his neck. When I asked him about it he just shrugged and told me that it was a pretty piece of jewelry and that not all of the vamp community had given up their souls.
 
All in all, while they were a bit touchy feely, the vampyres I met with that night were pleasant and interesting. I left the gathering well informed and full (they fed us, though none of them ate more than a bite or two –explaining they could eat, they just did not need to), if not feeling a little more tired than would be normal.